Disasters, terrorist attacks, and major accidents dramatically increase wireline and wireless telephone traffic. After the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks, wireless carriers reported traffic increased from 50 percent to 100 percent over the nationwide average. Wireless traffic increased to upwards of 1000 percent in the New York area and 400 percent in Washington D.C. During these times, the wireless communication access for first responders and other emergency personnel is limited to the capacity of the wireless networks.
The National Communications Commission (NCC) has promoted the concept of Wireless Priority Service (WPS) since the early nineties, however, the 9/11 attacks have given rise to an expedited plan to provide such a service. Presently, WPS service is available from multiple wireless carriers including the assignee of this application. WPS allows subscribers to dial *272 and the destination number to request priority over other callers. This service, however, does not provide pre-emption capability; that is, other callers are not disconnected in favor of the WPS subscriber. Rather, the WPS subscriber is placed in a queue for the next available traffic channel. If a non-WPS subscriber is also in the queue, the WPS subscriber is given priority. Although the WPS system allows a subscriber to receive priority over other callers, the network systems used by WPS remain the same for all subscribers and are subject to the number of channels, bandwidth, and Quality of Service (QoS) of those systems. Moreover, in certain disaster areas the wireless network systems may be damaged and rendered inoperable.
Thus what is needed is a system and method to facilitate wireless communication in areas where no wireless service is available. Further, a system and method is needed to provide access to a selected group of subscribers. Furthermore, a system and method is needed to facilitate wireless communication in areas where secure wireless service is required. Still further, a portable system is needed to quickly and easily establish a wireless communications network in a particular area; for example, to offer wireless communication services to first responders in a disaster area.